Last month, we hosted my youngest’s second birthday party! I had immediate family over for a celebration. This somewhat low-key celebration quickly turned scary when we learned a very hard lesson on “playing” with FIRE. I thought I would share what happened so that hopefully you guys can educate your kids and prevent any similar incident from happening with your littles.
Everything was going fine at the party until I heard shrieking coming from our guest bathroom and saw my 4 year old standing there frozen with a candle in her hand and hot wax drying all over her face, chest, and legs.
We quickly grabbed the candle and blew it out and used ice and cold water to get the wax off and settle her down. I shudder to think about her hair or anything else in the bathroom catching on fire. It all happened SO quickly. She kept talking about a scooter and we had no idea why so we dropped it, calmed her down and I decided I would get the story the next day once emotions had run their course. I was so confused because we burn candles almost all day, every day and my kids have NEVER tried to play with fire or anything of the sort. This was VERY out of the ordinary for her.
Monday morning I asked Stella what happened and she said she wanted to get her scooter from the garage but it was dark and she couldn’t reach the light. So instead of asking an adult for help, she “problem solved” and was going to use the candle to light up the dark garage so she could find her scooter and bring it inside.
I was somewhat relieved to hear her explanation because coming from a 4 year old brain, it was completely logical. This was not an incident where she was trying to “play” with fire or “show off” in front of her cousins. We were able to talk about the dangers of fire and why we do not play with it or candles. The solutions we came up with were simply to ask an adult to help if she ever needed something that she couldn’t reach or see because it was too dark. Another solution would have been to use her flashlight.
I know that although scary, this was a great teachable moment for me as a Mom and for our cousins who witnessed it happen. I am beyond thankful that she was protected from any burns or something worse!
I hope you can use my story to be more mindful of where you burn candles and / or have intentional conversations with your kids about them and what they are intended to be used for!
